Ideas
A Look at Agency Stimulus Tracking
A quick scan of the stimulus tracking sites shows that most agencies like to use text - a lot of text - to present information. That makes navigating a bit tedious. But some departments, like the <a href=http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/>Health and Human Services Department</a>, looks to have put a bit more effort into designing their site, using graphics and thinking about how to package content.
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Moving Tech Front and Center
The federal information technology community must still be pinching themselves to make sure they are not dreaming. Almost every administration relegated IT to the back rooms, thinking of the computer guys as propeller heads, and chief information technology officers as someone who were there to <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/20909/Federal_IT_Flunks_Out">fix the secretary's BlackBerry</a>.
Ideas
Cyberwarriors Fight the DOS Blitzkreig
The Defense Department has been conducting training exercises for cyberwarriors for years, but it finally formalized the operations in the National Cyber Range. From an article on MSNBC:
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Federal CIOs' Power on the Rise
For CIOs, some good news from the latest <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090224_9757.php CIO survey conducted by Tech America</a>, the industry association that was formed with the merger of the Information Technology Association of America and AeA.
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Headline of the Day
From the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Feb. 24 issue of TechBeat, the agency's biweekly tip sheet for journalists:
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DHS' New Privacy Officer
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1235067917533.shtm">announced today</a> that she has appointed Mary Ellen Callahan as chief privacy officer for the department. Callahan is a partner in the international law firm Hogan and Harston in Washington working on privacy and security issues.
Ideas
Air Force: No Security, No 'Net
If you're a soldier or a civilian working for the Defense Department, it's becoming harder and harder to do anything online. There's no YouTube, MySpace or even reading blogs for some. Now, for airmen at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, there's no Internet at all.
Ideas
From Sleepwalking to ZZZ-Mailing
Researchers from the University of Toledo, Ohio, report in the medical journal <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620282/description#description"><em>Sleep Medicine</em></a> about the first case of someone emailing while asleep -- an act related to sleepwalking.
Ideas
Public Outreach, Warts and All
It's been just three days since Virginia's Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/02/social_networking_the_stimulus.php>launched a Web site</a> soliciting Virginians' ideas about how to spend the economic stimulus money the state may receive. As of Friday afternoon, 1,274 projects (and counting) were posted on <a href=http://stimulus.virginia.gov/> stimulus.virginia.gov</a>.
Ideas
Play Nice When Phish Training
In an update on the controversy over the Justice Department phishing test, Government Executive reporter Alyssa Rosenberg wrote near the end of her <a href=http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42022&dcn=todaysnews>article</a>:
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Social Networking the Stimulus
In the spirit of reaching out to the public to collaborate on policy decisions, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has launched a site asking Virginians to send in projects that could be funded by the billions of dollars soon to come form Congress.
Ideas
Senate Stimulus Spares Health IT
Fellow blogger Andrew Noyes, at CongressDaily's Tech Daily Dose, reports that health care information technology looks to have (mostly) dodged the knife in the Senate's economic stimulus bill. His analysis:
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Shameless Self-Promotion
Pardon the shameless self-promotion, but it's always nice to get recognition from Web 2.0 giants like Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org. In an interview with <a href="http://www.govloop.com/">GovLoop</a>, Newmark, whose is a member of the social networking site, said:
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OPM Settles on Retirement Calculator
The Office of Personnel Management has settled its dispute with Hewitt Associates over a faulty retirement calculator for the agency's RetireEZ modernization project. According to a Hewitt statement issued earlier today:
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Baker Tapped for VA CIO?
It looks like the Obama administration is vetting long-time federal IT executive Roger Baker for the chief information officer post at the Veterans Affairs Department, according to sources.
Ideas
The Unaccounted For IT Costs
Senate Republicans want to include in the economic stimulus bill a provision that would allow <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100259536">the federal government to offer 4 percent to 4.5 percent home loans</a> as a way to reduce foreclosures while at the same time goosing the U.S. economy by freeing up more money for consumer spending. This idea, like most policy decisions that come out of Congress, sounds good until agencies are asked to implement it.
Ideas
The Lowdown on E-Health ROI
How long before the government's investment in e-health records -- mostly spent in the form of "incentives" provided through Medicare and Medicaid -- starts to pay off? Longer than you may think, if you look at the Congressional Budget Office's <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9968/hr1.pdf">analysis of the House stimulus bill</a>.
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The Spread of the TSP Scam?
Fellow blogger Alyssa Rosenberg at Government Executive's FedBlog writes that the <a href="http://govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=41938&dcn=todaysnews">Justice Department's phishing test</a> for its employees may have <a href="http://blogs.govexec.com/fedblog/2009/02/justicedesigned_tsp_scam_reach.php">spilled over to the Commerce Department</a>.
Ideas
Obama's BlackBerry Addiction Explained
Salon.com has a Q&A with Dalton Conley, chair of the sociology department at New York University and author of the new book, "Elsewhere U.S.A.," which, Salon.com explains, "describes not only the rise of the familiar texting, instant messaging, e-mailing culture that has transformed the old 9-to-5 into the 24/7, but the underlying cultural and economic factors driving even high-paid workers to feel like they should be working more hours."
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